Hope is the Last Thing Ever Lost
by x.keepingthemoon.x
Summary: He was a murderer. Her husband's at that. How was it that he was still one of the greatest people she'd ever met?


**Thanks for clicking on this story! I hope you enjoy.**

**I do not own Under the Dome.**

**This takes place before the events of 'Exigent Circumstances' and 'Curtains'.**

* * *

They say that you can never really understand someone until you consider things from their point of view…until you climb inside of their skin and walk around in it. That somehow, by doing this, you will just know them.

Could Julia understand then, by considering his point of view, why Barbie had killed her husband?

Sure, it wasn't like he had set out to kill Peter. But did that make it any different? He was dead, at the hands of Barbie, any way she looked at it.

But Barbie was kind and gentle. Loyal and protective and loving. It was no wonder she'd fallen in love with him so quickly. He'd dropped everything to help Esquivel when she'd asked. He was a protector, and he'd done a fine job of it ever since the dome came down. When Paul had fired his gun at the dome, shooting and killing Freddy, Barbie had been the one to run to Paul and disarm him without a second thought. And then when Linda had become sick, he'd been one of the ones to help take her into the clinic. When the Reverend had taken all of the medication, he'd been there to help get it back, saving the people of the town from an epidemic.

And, he had saved her.

"_Was that you?"_

"_Was that me what?"_

"_Was that you who saved my life? _

She'd known it was foolish to break out of the clinic when she was infected. But she was so desperate to know where Peter was, and when she'd been searching for clues in the cabin and collapsed, Barbie had been the one to find her and save her life.

And then there was that night, in the rain, when she'd seen him walking down the middle of the road. Seeing him walking in the rain in the dark night, soaked and all alone, she'd seen what a selfless person he was. That he was kind-hearted and protected people when they needed it.

But he'd murdered Peter. She hated the way the word sounded on her tongue in relation to Barbie. Sure, he had killed her husband, but a _murderer_? He was defending himself. Peter had been the one to pull the gun. It was funny, she thought, how you can think you know someone and then it turns out they're a completely different person. Barbie was just trying to do his job. Of course he wasn't innocent; his job was, by its very nature, illegal. But was he really to blame for what had happened?

Blame or no blame, she'd known he was hiding something though.

"_So what are the odds that you, just passing through, happened to be here on the day that an unprecedented, possibly supernatural event occurred?"_

"_I swear you ask more questions than anybody I've ever met."_

"_Well you know you're pretty good at evading them."_

Time after time, he'd denied any connection that he had to Chester's Mill. That he was just like Carolyn and Alice and their daughter Norrie, just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. That he had just been horribly unlucky to be driving through at that time.

"_Dee's Pharmacy is closed. Maybe the gas station has aspirin."_

"_You know this town pretty well for someone who's just passing through."_

"_Dee's is not really a hard name to remember."_

If he hadn't run his car off the road and into the McAlister's paddock, Barbie would have been safely out of Chester's Mill, past the edge of the dome and on his way through the next small town a couple of miles away. Maybe he got caught there for a reason. Maybe the two of them were meant to meet.

Each time she tried to find out anything about him he'd close up. But she'd caught little pieces of him – clues almost – that made her think there was more to him than he was willing to say; that he had been there when the dome came down for a reason.

"_But there's a difference between me and you."_

"_How so?"_

"_I take off after the fire's out. At least, if I have somewhere to take off to."_

"_You bruised your knuckles."_

"_Yeah. I bruised my knuckles."_

"_And you really _were_ just passing through Chester's Mill? No connection to anyone here in town?"_

"_No. Goodnight, Julia."_

But he _had _opened up to her about some things. About his deployment to Iraq; the friendly fire. She could tell how hard it was for him to do that. Maybe he was only bearing his soul because they all thought they were going to die by the missile. Maybe not.

"_Maybe this is how I deserve to go. More friendly fire."_

She didn't believe that for one moment. Even now, when she knew what he had done to Peter, she still couldn't find it in her to think for one second that he deserved to die for what he had done. Even if that's what he thought. And in a strange way, he'd done what he needed to do. She'd found the papers in the safety deposit box. The life insurance that Julia would need to get her life back. The house, the savings and everything they had worked for. Peter had _needed_ to die so that she would get the money. He needed someone to kill him.

And Barbie had done that. He didn't know that Peter's gun was empty. He'd seen the weapon and retrieved his own and amid the scuffle of trying to get it out of the way, Peter had been shot.

It was an accident. Barbie hadn't gone to the cabin with the intention to kill him.

But he had lied to her. Over and over again.

"_So where is he now? Please. I have to know."_

"_He must have taken off. You know, that happens sometimes. Some guys, they get in so deep and…you know, they skip town. I'm sorry."_

"_You're sorry? I let you stay in my house. I trusted you. Your "sorry" means nothing to me. When I get back home, you better be gone."_

He'd known where Peter was. That he wasn't even alive. That he was in the ground. Heck, he'd _put_ him in the ground.

He hadn't even told her. Of course she could understand why, but he still should have told her the truth.

He would have known. From the first minute he stepped foot into Julia's house, when he'd seen the picture, he would have known it was her husband he killed.

"_That's Peter behind you. You must think I'm an idiot."_

"_Wh-what do you mean?"_

"_Journalist, who doesn't know what's going on under her own nose. I'm sure the whole town's thinking it. My husband isn't here because he's having an affair." _

The relief must have been there on his face, but she had missed it. He would have thought that she knew about what he had done until she mentioned the supposed affair.

"_You don't know him like I do. He'll turn up, you'll see."_

"_Can't wait to meet him."_

"_Come on, I'll give you the nickel tour."_

Perhaps the mystery of Dale "Barbie" Barbara was the reason she was so drawn to him. A man who for some unknown reason just happened to be passing through Chester's Mill when the dome first arrived. She hadn't even found out that his real name – not that she'd thought _Barbie_ washis real name – was Dale until after he'd stayed the night in her house; when he'd found the dog tags he'd supposedly left over the mirror in the bathroom.

How many times had he had the chance to tell her?

"_I've got a husband out there I'd kind of like to see again."_

But he hadn't. So she'd had to do some digging of her own. She wasn't just curious about what happened to Peter – she had thought originally that he was having an affair anyway – she _needed _to know. She knew there was something not quite right. If there was one thing the dome was good at, it was unveiling the secrets of those trapped within. As it turned out, everyone in the small community of Chester's Mill had something to hide and she needed all the information she could get.

"_Junior…James, you don't understand. I think that my husband might be in trouble."_

"_How?"_

"_All I know is that Phil said that he was meeting Peter in a cabin."_

"_Like the one I found Barbie at?"_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_A few days ago I followed Barbie to this cabin. End of Sparrow's Lane."_

So she had used Peter's access card to get her out of the clinic – even though she was infected - and went to the cabin, where Barbie found her, collapsed on the floor and no closer to finding out where her husband was. All she knew was that the cabin was trashed and her house was being foreclosed.

"_I learned about Peter in that cabin. We're broke. He emptied our accounts. And the house is in foreclosure. So, what were you all into? Drugs?"_

"_When I got out of the military, I did, uh…I had a bunch of odd jobs. I was a line cook. Construction. And then, um…then I linked up with a bookie out of Westlake."_

"_Taking bets?"_

"_Making sure that people paid what they owed."_

"_You're an enforcer."_

"_Guys like Phil owed and then they paid up. And most of the time, it's like that."_

"_Peter never gambled."_

She heard the voicemail recording from five days ago that Barbie had and she still could barely believe it. But she had to. The evidence was all there in the form of foreclosure notices and bank statements. And Barbie's word.

In his defence, he had tried to tell her. In the crowded, dark, smelling cement works, along with the hundreds of other citizens of Chester's Mill. Obviously it was something she needed to know and he knew this. Whether they all died in the explosion or not, she deserved the truth from him.

"_Where do you think he is now? Some flop-house in Vegas?"_

"_Julia – "_

"_I made my peace with it. Besides, maybe he was right. You know, I didn't understand this place before the dome came down. But now, after everything we've been through, I'm glad I got to be a part of it."_

"_Julia, there's something that you need to hear."_

"_You don't have to say anything – "_

"_No, you don't understand – "_

He never had been able to finish what he was saying. Alice and Carolyn had run in, frantic because Norrie was missing. Barbie had followed her, without hesitation, when she said she knew another way out of the cement works and was going to find Norrie and Joe.

She'd held his hand when they reached the edge of the dome and looked out, seeing the destruction that was the surrounds of Chester's Mill. But there they were, untouched.

The dome had brought them together. It seemed to Julia almost as if the dome had come for the sole purpose of her finding out what had happened to Peter. If it hadn't arrived, and Barbie had actually left like he had tried to, she might never have found out exactly what happened to her husband. Barbie had buried him and who knows long it would have taken for his body to be discovered?

After all that had happened, she respected Barbie. She knew that the goodness she had seen from him since the dome came down – since the day she met him – certainly outweighed whatever else he had done before that day. Of course she hadn't known him, so she had no idea of the things he had done, but he was a good man. A little misguided perhaps, but a genuinely good man.

An amazing man.

Now the question she had to ask herself was that, after considering things from Barbie's point of view and certainly from her own, did she still want to be with him?

It had to be bizarre. A relationship with the man that had killed her husband? That was the sort of things she'd only ever heard about in novels or on the front of those freaky real-life magazines.

But she knew the answer. The man that had killed her husband? The enforcer? She didn't know him. He was a figment of history. The Barbie she knew – the here-and-now one – was one of the greatest people she had ever met in her life.

Could she turn her back on him after everything she had learnt?

The dome had changed them all on that fateful day it came crashing down on the sleepy town of Chester's Mill. Some for better; some for worse. If Julia had asked herself the same question pre-dome, she would have said yes. She was certain of it. How could she love a man who had ripped apart her world? She would have said she would turn her back on him in an instant.

Perhaps it was a good thing the dome arrived. She had learned to love graciously.

Two things ripped apart her world that day: the mysterious dome and the mysterious man.

One good and one bad.

Of one thing she was certain.

Dale "Barbie" Barbara was most definitely the good one.


End file.
